


A Sad Sort of Clanging

by LavenderProse



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1930s, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Intercrural Sex, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Pining, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Requited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-08
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2018-02-28 15:19:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2737514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LavenderProse/pseuds/LavenderProse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>He wants to explain to Steve that he hopes that someday he'll find the right gal and he won't feel constantly sick to his stomach about what he is and what he wants. That he hopes someday he'll be normal. </i>
  <br/>
  <i>(He doesn't know how to say any of this without telling Steve that he is in love with him, so stupid in love that he can't think sometimes.)</i>
</p><p>Or: Bucky is lovesick and Steve might be the cure he's looking for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sad Sort of Clanging

The apartment is dark. He takes off his jacket as he licks the taste of Margery Turner's lipstick from his teeth and drapes it over the lamp by the door. Steve will yell at him about it in the morning, because he has an unhealthy obsession with that lamp, but Bucky can never find the damned closet door in the dark. He's probably wasted hours of his life at this point shuffling along the wall, trying lay hand on a tiny, dented brass doorknob in an endless pool of shadow.

He creeps into the room. It's all one, massive expanse of scarred hardwood and plaster walls except for the bathroom. The kitchen is clustered into a corner, a cabinet and stove and a tiny ice box that Bucky has trouble keeping ice in because the iceman likes to come the afternoon before Bucky gets his paycheck and, depending on how Steve's health has been, it's very dubious if he has the money to pay him. (His name is Tim Doherty and he owes Bucky no favors, mostly because they were on opposing high school baseball teams but also because Bucky once took Tammy Doherty on one of the worst dates of either of their short lives.)

Across from the kitchen is the sofa. It faces the window because…Steve insisted, for whatever reason, and Bucky has to admit that the view is nice—three big, arching windows that go from one side of the room to the other; flowerpots belonging to the old lady that lives across the street, Sorcha or Siobhan or something completely different; speaks Irish—but it means that he can never tell if anyone is on the couch until he's standing on top of them.

The deli they live above has turned off its lights, but Bucky can tell that there is no Steve-shaped lump underneath the cream-yellow sheets of their shared bed. The lights are off in the bathroom. He glances over his shoulder at his coat on the lamp, sighs to himself because he's fucked.

Steve has a closed sketchbook in his lap. His hair is soft and uncombed and it curls just a little around his ears. It reflects every miniscule bit of light that hits it. His long, skinny legs are pale-pale in the yellow-orange glow of the streetlight, one curled under his fleshy bum and the other dangling, toes scraping the hardwood. His delicate collarbone peeks out from a too-big shirt. Bucky's shirt. One he doesn't wear anymore because of a hole in the armpit and the fabric getting so thin that, in the right light, it was almost transparent.

(It's the right light. Steve's nipples are…pink and pretty and small. Like him.)

"That's my shirt," Bucky mumbles. He doesn't know what else to say. Steve looks up from under his lashes. They're like a dame's, except not, because Steve has the kind of lashes that the dames only wish they had.

Sometimes Bucky figures that he sees Steve through some kind of hazed-over vision of lust and pining and perversion. Why else would nobody else see what he sees. Why else would the girls only see his short stature and his pigeon chest when they can be looking at his eyes and his long, nimble hands and the pretty blue lines of his veins under his skin and his plump lips and his elegant, thin ankles.

(Not that Bucky doesn't love the pigeon chest and the short stature. He thinks about them all the time. He thinks about lifting Steve onto the counter and sliding between his thighs. He thinks about sucking a bruise underneath a fine clavicle, bone delicate as a bird's.)

Steve says, "Yeah," and draws a hand down his face. "I didn't think you'd mind. I haven't seen you wear it in…" He trails away, like he loses interest in the sentence halfway through.

"Yeah. I mean no. I don't. Mind."

"Okay."

He spends another moment staring at Steve, soft and rumpled. Toes off his shoes and sits down beside his roommate. Neither of them speaks for several heavy beats, but he can't keep himself from asking, "Are you…angry at me?" because he can't help but notice that this feels like those times when his mother would sit up until the small hours of the morning, waiting for his drunken father to return from wherever. The last thing Bucky ever wants is to be his father. To treat Steve like his father treated his mother. The things the Great War did to the man were unforgivable, but so were the things the man did to his family.

"No. No, why would I be angry? I have nothing to be angry about." Steve stares down at the sketchbook in his lap. "Why would I be…"

"I dunno, Stevie…but if you are, you've gotta tell me, 'cause I can't…" he wants to say  _deal with you being angry at me_  or,  _stand to see you upset_ , but what comes out is, "read your mind, or anything, so you gotta…use your words, bud, or something." He sits there anxiously for a moment, waiting for Steve to speak. The whiskey he drank at the bar should still be in his system, but he feels painfully sober how that he's faced with whatever emotion is in Steve's big blue eyes.

Steve sighs and leans forward to drop his sketchbook on the table. Forward, forward and the shirt rides up, up until one entire expanse of milky hip is revealed and it's abundantly clear that he has nothing on but the shirt. Bucky bites back whatever noise is trying to rise in his throat.

"Did you have fun with Margery?" Steve mumbles. "You're back earlier than I thought you'd be."

"Oh, uh…yeah, she was nice. But, uh…she had to get up early tomorrow. For church." On Sunday mornings, Brooklyn is at its quietest. Bucky sleeps in; hasn't gone to church since he turned eighteen and his mother could no longer make him. Steve goes some mornings. Others, he gets up, but spends the hours until noon sitting on the couch, staring out the window. Still others, he stays in bed and Bucky stares at the back of his sunflower head and wants so badly to touch, touch, touch.

A noise, like a hum, leaves Steve's throat.

"Were you waiting up for me, Stevie? You know you don't have to—"

"I know." Steve turns his head to the side, fixes Bucky with that cornflower gaze, and the muscle in his neck stands prominent and Bucky wants to drop sweet kisses there, wants to press his nose there and smell Steve. "I know I don't, but I…couldn't sleep. So." He turns back. Continues staring out the window. He folds his legs again, this time raising one knee to his chest, rests the other knee against the cushion of the couch and locks his ankles together. There's so much skin. So much.

Slowly, Bucky says, "Margery wasn't my type," and licks his lips, half out of nervousness and half because the hem of the shirt is rucked up around Steve's bellybutton and he doesn't even care, but Bucky cares because if that knee wasn't in the way…

He aches between his legs. He's grateful it's dark. He spent twenty minutes necking with Margery just now and it didn't do anything for him, and he might be lying when he said Margery left for an early bedtime. He might be eliminating the fact that between, "I need to get home," and, "There's church tomorrow," Margery smiled at him kindly—but not like dames are supposed to smile at fellas; more like how a mother smiles at her bellyaching child—and said, "It's alright, James. Some guys just can't after they've had a few," then kissed his cheek and took her wide hips and her red lips all the way around the corner with her, and Bucky didn't feel any sort of loss. Now though, sitting two feet away from the scrawny guy he's been best friends with since neither of them could pronounce his middle name and  _Buchanan_ became  _Bucky_ , he's so hard it hurts.

Steve says, "They're never your type, Buck," and drops his head back against the sofa. "I don't know why you take them out if you're just gonna…drop them. I don't think it's right, to be honest." He scratches his finger under his nose, back of his neck red like he gets when he's embarrassed. Bucky knows that it takes a lot for him to be confrontational. With strangers, sure, but Bucky can count the number of times Steve has taken a hard tone with him on one hand. He feels a hot shot of guilt go down his backbone for putting Steve in a position like that. He wants to explain that he can't help it, that it's the only way he knows how to survive. The only way he knows how to spare Steve from his perversion. He wants to explain to Steve that he hopes that someday he'll find the right gal and he won't feel constantly sick to his stomach about what he is and what he wants. That he hopes someday he'll be normal.

(He doesn't know how to say any of this without telling Steve that he is in love with him, so stupid in love that he can't think sometimes.)

"I know it ain't," Bucky mumbles.

"It ain't," Steve mumbles.

"But it's the only way I know how to be, Steve." He doesn't like the quiver in his voice, but he doesn't have the piece of mind to hold it back at the moment. "I…I see a girl, I think she's pretty, I…I…I don't know what else to do, y'know, she'll keep lookin' at me, and before I know it, I'm…" He slumps toward Steve on the sofa, and maybe he's still a little drunk, because his voice sounds rough to his own ears and he stretches a hand out to Steve's leg and presses his fingertips there and then  _leaves_  them. Even though it's risky. He doesn't take them away. "Before I know it, it's _let's go dancing_  and  _pick me up at nine_. And then we get to talking and…they're all the same. They wanna talk about the same things, they drink the same things, they dance the same way."

Steve fixes him with a look that is at once kind and disappointed. "All fellas are the same too, Bucky. Everyone's the same at our age."

"No," Bucky whispers.

"Yeah," Steve insists, and now those long-fingered, ink-stained hands are cradling his face, holding his chin inches above the upholstery of the couch. Steve's hands are dry and cool. One thumb presses into the underside of his chin, the other almost on the corner of his mouth. Bucky wonders what he tastes like here. "Everyone's the same at our age. The girls all wanna get married and the guys all wanna get rich."

Bucky stares at him, opens his mouth and Steve's thumb doesn't move, even when it almost sinks into his mouth without the solidness of his teeth reinforcing the softness of his cheeks. Slowly, he whispers, "What do you want, Steve?"

Steve licks his lips. Bucky wonders what he tastes like there. "Money would be nice."

"That's not what you want though, Steve." He turns his face into Steve's hand, butts his forehead against his friend's palm. "Don't lie to me. Okay?"

"'m not lyin' to you, Buck. I never have and I never will."

"So tell me what you want," Bucky whispers.

"I don't know, Bucky," Steve sighs.

"Liar," Bucky mouths against Steve's palm. He hears Steve's breath catch and thinks he should stop, but his mouth doesn't pay attention. "Tell you what I want. There's a pretty little blonde…"

"That's nice, Buck. Why don't you ask her out?"

"Blue eyes and…all this soft, pink skin…" Steve takes his hand away. Bucky mourns its loss, but Steve scoots closer and pulls down the hem of his shirt and sets Bucky's head down in his lap. Steve is interesting from this angle. His jaw is strong and the shadow of his lower lip is more prominent. "Little, just askin' to be picked up and carried around."

"Bucky," Steve says, with this exasperated little huff to his voice. "You can't talk about women like that."

"What about guys?" He doesn't know what possesses him to say it. It's like the words force themselves out of his throat, but he feels lighter for having said them. He thinks Steve might brush him off, or that he won't understand what's being implied. But Steve is smart—it's one of the many, many things that makes Bucky silly in the head for the guy—and it's only a matter of time, he thinks, until he realizes what Bucky said. Even if it's tomorrow morning and Bucky comes home from work to find a page of Steve's sketchbook torn out, explaining that he doesn't think they should live together anymore. His body feels hot, like he's under two thousand blankets.

"Don't talk about anyone like that," Steve mutters, and it's clearly a time when his mouth moves before his brain because he sits there for a moment, satisfied that he has rescued Bucky's morals once again, before he huffs, "Huh?" and his eyes go big.

Bucky licks his lips and whispers, "You heard me," and waits.

He sees Steve's apple bob twice before he slowly opens his mouth, closes it again equally as slowly, and whispers, "Bucky, I can't…"

"I know," he blurts before Steve can continue, even though he feels like he's been doused in cold water and he might—yeah, he might fall down if he wasn't already laying down, with his head in Steve's lap, and he should move. He should definitely be moving, but Steve's hands aren't moving. They're still in his hair and on his chest and he has one little, dying ember of hope buried somewhere in the pit of his stomach. "I know, I'm sorry. Do you hate me? Don't hate me."

"No, I don't," Steve whispers. "I don't hate you, Bucky." He smoothes back Bucky's fringe. "I just think that you're a little drunk, and you don't know what you're saying. Okay? Go to sleep. You'll feel better in the morning."

"No, no," Bucky hisses. He reaches up a hand to Steve's cheek. "No, Steve, I love…I'm in love with you, Steve, and I know what I'm saying. I'm in love with you drunk or sober or…I'm…I can't stop thinking about you. Even when I'm kissin' Margery Turner, all I can think about is you. I'm silly for you, sugar."

Steve is shaking his head. "No, Bucky, stop. You're not, okay? You're…confused…"

"Never been less confused about anything in my life." He sits up, knots his hand into Steve's (his) shirt and pulls him by it until they are nose-to-nose. Steve's breath smells clean. "You can call me a pervert, Steve. I'll even agree with you. But don't tell me I'm confused about something I've known since I was old enough to know what love was, okay? Fuck, Steve. I love you. I'm not confused and I'm not lying. Maybe I'm sick in the fuckin' head, but I know what I'm talking about."

He keeps their noses pressed together. Steve is breathing heavily, and his hand is still in Bucky's hair. Bucky takes his wrist in hand, feels the fluttering of his pulse in his fingertips. Steve sighs, long and slow and low, and circles the tip of his nose around Bucky's. He whispers, "You're not a pervert, Buck," and his lips brush against Bucky's. It makes his breath catch, makes his hand spasm around Steve's wrist. Steve adds, "At least, not to me," and presses their mouths together, lips only just parted, and Bucky can feel the soft wetness of his inner lips.

Bucky lets out an almost frantic noise and presses his palm against the back of Steve's neck. The position is awkward, with the bottom half of his body not underneath him but beside him. He can't bring himself to care, instead tangling his hands in Steve's hair and tonguing his bottom lip. When Steve's tongue flicks out against his, he huffs and has to pull away, has to breathe and press his forehead to Steve's and move his palm down from his neck to his shoulder, to his chest where his pink, pretty nipples are hard against his palm. He moves his hand in large circles, and Steve makes a high, airy noise in the back of his throat as he arches into his hand.

"You like that?" Bucky whispers.

"Mm…" Steve presses his palm against the back of Bucky's hand, moves his hand with Bucky's as his head falls onto the back of the couch. "I…Bucky…"

"Shhh." Bucky drops tiny, sucking kisses on Steve's shoulder, his neck, the underside of his chin. "I've got you. Just let me touch you…" He finds one nipple, catches it between his thumb and forefinger and opens his mouth wide against Steve's neck, and Steve makes sweet, breathy noises—

By the door, something crashes.

They jump apart instinctively, before the nature or location of the threat is even assessed. Steve whips around, squinting at the shadows by the door. Bucky sits up and realizes a second too late what the cause of the bang was, why Steve's staring at him with some mixture of exasperation and disdain. He mumbles, "Oops," and scratches the back of his neck.

"How many times," Steve mutters, rising from the sofa, "have I told you not to hang your jacket over the lamp?" The shirt slides to cover his bum, but not much else, and Bucky wishes he'd turn around so he could see if Steve had reacted to their kisses and closeness the same way he had, still  _is_.

He watches Steve bend down to pick up the jacket and right the lamp, watches him shake out the crumbled fabric and, when he discovers that one sleeve is inside the jacket, reaches inside to fetch it out. Bucky wants to tell Steve that he doesn't have to do that, wants to tell him that he'll do it because Steve is not his mother or his wife, but Steve doesn't look put off. He doesn't look put off and Bucky is hypnotized by his movements, his small body moving in angles and lines over the dark room. He finds the closet unerringly, and Bucky sees him pop up on his tiptoes to reach the hook inside the closet where Bucky hangs his jacket. The shirt rides up and the swell of his bum peeks out and Bucky has to look away, has to rub a hand over his eyes.

When Steve closes the closet door, he stands there for a minute, hands braced against the peeling blue paint. From this angle, he's a perfect silhouette, and Bucky sees him bite his lip, sees him scratch the back of his calf with the opposite set of toes—both nervous habits that Bucky is well acquainted with. Then he turns and takes a meandering, shuffling route back to the sofa, running his hands over his cheeks and into his hair and finally down the back of his neck. He locks his fingers behind his neck and lets his elbows hang there, all sharp angles, as he bellies up to the back of the couch. Bucky gets up on his knees. They're almost the same height like this.

"Hey you," Bucky whispers. He eases a hand over the sofa and around the small of Steve's back.

"Hey," Steve says. Bucky takes his bottom lip between his own, soft and just barely-there. Feels Steve's breath stutter against his lips. Leans their foreheads together. Steve's breath is roughening again when he whispers "We should, um…talk. About this."

"Do we hafta?" Bucky whispers, and trails his lips over Steve's cheek, close enough to feel the downy-soft tickle of peach fuzz on his face, but no closer. Steve's skin is something addicting, warm and soft. Bucky's fingers vibrate with the need to touch. It would be easy to move his big palm down and engulf one of the fleshy globes of Steve's ass in his hand, but he doesn't want to spook the guy. Instead, he keeps one arm folded on the back of the sofa, propping himself up, and the other hand splayed flat against the small of Steve's back.

(If only he could walk down the street with his hand nestled right there—he doesn't think he'd ever move it if he didn't have to. If Steve was a dame and Bucky's infatuation with him was acceptable. If men could…but no, that would be ridiculous. It would never happen.)

" _Bucky_ ," Steve says, and even though his voice is still breathy, his tone is demanding. His hands land on Bucky's shoulders and pushes. Not to shove off; Bucky doesn't think he's being rejected. But he also doesn't put it past Steve to send him reeling back onto his ass ("Gerroff me, you giant mook!") if he doesn't obey what those hands are telling him to do.

"Alright, alright." Bucky pulls away, putting a safe amount of distance between himself and Steve. He leaves his hand right where it is on Steve's back, though. Steve doesn't seem to mind. "There."

Steve stares at his hands for a long time, and Bucky lets him gather his words. As long as he gets to keep touching Steve, he has all the patience in the world. This turns out to be the right decision—maybe his mom had been onto something all those times she told him patience was a virtue—when Steve sneaks a hand onto Bucky's forearm, trails it up over the cotton of his shirt and wraps loosely around the corner of his collar. He licks his lips, clears his throat, and mumbles, "Why are you doing this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…" Steve sighs, never good with his words when they're not being spat out of his small body at a thousand miles per hour in the midst of some righteous rant in an alley. "You're…and I'm…" He sighs again, going red in the face, tightens his fingers on Bucky's collar. "Why me, huh? If you're into guys, there are…better options, I suppose."

In that moment, Bucky hates every single guy who's ever called Steve puny, every girl who's ever shot him sympathetic looks while hiding her giggles behind her hand. Everybody who's had a part in giving Steve this fucking doozy of an inferiority complex he has on him, every single person who has ever made Steve Rogers feel like anything less than the fucking diamond in the rough that he is.

(And if that means hating everyone but himself and the late Sarah Rogers, then so be it. It's always been him and Steve against the world, in some way or another. He doesn't expect that to change anytime soon.)

"I just told you I'm in love with you, punk," Bucky murmurs. He raise a hand to Steve's, traces his fingers gently over knuckles and finger-joints and smooth nails. He wants to know what they feel like scratching down his back. "I understand if the sentiment isn't returned, but lovin' you is all I know how to do anymore, practically."

Steve clears his throat, lifts his eyes. "I know you're not lying, Buck. About loving me. But you and I both know that there's more than one kinda love, and the love someone has for a person they wanna…get to know, in the biblical sense," and here Bucky snorts because Steve is so Catholic that it almost hurts. Steve shoots him a glare full of blue-tinged ire, and Bucky cuts it out. "That kind of love can be different from the love someone has for the person they'll marry."

"If you're askin' if I just wanna have you for the night, or something—"

"No, I know you wouldn't," Steve assures, and Bucky feels momentarily reassured, but there's still the threat of a  _but_  lurking on the edge of Steve's statement. "I just…uh…what I'm saying is, I'll take anything you want to give me, Buck. I've been yours since we were kids, and you've gotta know that, but…I want you to know that I don't know if I'd be okay with letting you go. If something better came along. When you decide to get married, it might…if we do this, it might just break me. When you leave."

Bucky presses his hands to Steve's face. He has a strong, square jaw on him, and Bucky's thumbs find the corners of that sharp angle and press just slightly. "If we do this, bud…marryin' is the farthest thing from my mind."

Steve huffs out a laugh, and it's not funny, not really, but there's some bit of genuine amusement in his face. "We're gonna have to get married someday, Bucky. At least, you will. I don't think anyone will wonder why if I never get married, but you? Nobody'll be able to believe you can't find a girl to marry you." People are already kind of suspicious that Bucky doesn't have a steady girl, but most are content to put that up to the young and restless nature of immigrant boys, the franticness of pursuing their parents' American dream, hitting the ground running and not looking up until they're twenty-seven and a wife and children are something there is  _time_  for.

"Don't care," Bucky mumbles, almost mindlessly. His default response to anything thinking they know what's good for him, even Steve.

"I do," Steve whispers. "I've seen what they do to…to queers down at the docks, Buck. If something like that happened to you, if they…because of me…"

While he can't deny that the thought scares him—although not for himself, never for himself; he's seen the same things Steve as, very probably even more, and all he can think about half the time is Steve's beautiful, fine-featured face beaten to a bloody pulp by beefy, ignorant hands—Bucky shakes his head and digs his fingers harder into Steve's jaw. "Shh. Don't think about that. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Okay? You don't think I'll protect myself? And you?"

"Of course." Steve looks like he's not so sure Bucky's head is screwed on right.

"Then you've gotta trust me to do that." He leans back on his haunches, jerks his head. "C'mere."

He expects Steve to come around the sofa, but instead he lifts himself onto the back of the couch and plants his feet on either side of Bucky's thighs. It's alright. He can work with that—starting with his palms flat on Steve's thighs. He grins down at the expanse of milky skin, moves his hands up Steve's legs, over his hips, hikes up the shirt. Steve's pubic hair is both darker and lighter than what's on his head, darkest over his testicles and lightest, almost-platinum at his bellybutton. He feels Steve's eyes on his forehead, watching. He doesn't seem embarrassed, and Bucky is glad.

Biting his lip, he looks up through his fringe. There is a flush high on Steve's cheeks, like he's just a little drunk. His knuckles are white against the upholstery of the sofa. If his nails were any sharper or he was any stronger, the fabric might very well be ripping at this point.

"Hey," Bucky murmurs, and feels redness rising in his cheeks to echo Steve's.

"Hey," Steve whispers. For one intense moment, they make burning eye contact and Bucky works up the nerve to touch.

After a moment, the tension breaks. They share nervous, charmed giggles as Bucky lets the shirt fall back into place. "Christ. I'm…I'm a little out of my depth here." He's never wanted anything so much in his life, and yet the idea of reaching out and taking what he wants, what he's being offered, is a little too much.

"I can tell," Steve murmurs back. He runs his fingers up the back of Bucky's hair, from nape to crown, where sweat is making his hair damp. "If it makes you feel better, so am I."

"Maybe if you just…" Bucky's hands move up, around Steve's back, give a passing feel to his rear and then find their place on his back again. He pulls him down, twists and falls back against the arm of the couch while he's at it—Steve yelps—and, once Steve's knees have come to land on either side of his legs, hooks his hands into the back of Steve's knees and yanks him close, close as possible. Steve's groin presses against his belly, and Steve's face hovers above his. Mouth an O, like he's not exactly sure what's happened.

"This is better," Bucky whispers. Plants on hand on Steve's ass, firm. Steve lets out a small gasp, jerks his head up. Bucky tongues the dip of his collarbone. Squeezes the flesh in his hand and whispers, "Can't tell you how long I've wanted to get a hand on this cute little rear of yours, Stevie."

"Wouldn't believe how long I've wanted your hands on me," Steve says—whispers it, like it's a secret. He opens his mouth, and Bucky hears him make an airless clicking noise in the back of his throat before he says, "Y'can touch something else. If you want."

Bucky breathes, "Jesus," and moves his hand around and cups his hand between Steve's legs through the shirt. Steve's breath catches, not quite a moan, and Bucky squeezes and locks his mouth with Steve's.

Mouth opening wide, Steve rocks against Bucky's hand and bunches one hand in the hem of his shirt and yanks it up, right through Bucky's fingers. Bucky almost groans louder than Steve when his hand meets bare, humid skin. He runs his tongue along the roof of Steve's mouth, the inside of his cheeks, the hole in his molars where a rotten tooth baby tooth fell out when they were kids and the adult tooth just never grew up. Steve makes a small noise, grabs his face and presses so hard into him that their teeth clack together. It's messy and inelegant and Bucky has always prided himself on his skill at kissing, but he cannot bring himself to care. Steve is hard under his palm, and he's wanted this for so long that he can hardly believe that it's happening.

Steve pulls away and whispers, "You can…move your…y'know—"

"Yeah, yeah," Bucky says back, and wraps his hand around Steve's hot arousal and strokes. Steve exhales shakily against his temple, grunts when Bucky swipes a thumb over the head of his cock. Bucky strokes an encouraging hand over his flank, up-down-up-down. It's too fast and frantic, creates friction that warms Steve's skin under his hand. The whispering sound of his palm moving over Steve's soft skin is the only sound in the room aside from Steve's catching breath, the barely-audible  _ah_  leaving his throat without his permission.

Bucky mouths at his collarbone until he hits the collar, tugs at it with his teeth then lets it go in favor of demanding, "Get this thing off."

Steve is quick to oblige. He fists his fingers into the back of the collar and pulls it over his head in one fell swoop. He throws it over Bucky's shoulder and Bucky hears the  _fwump_  from nearby that means he wasn't able to throw it very far, but he doesn't care as long as it's out of his way. Doesn't care now that he can get his mouth around one of Steve's nipples.

"Oh my God," Steve whispers, reverent as sacrament but low as sin.

Bucky sucks,  _hard_ , like he's trying to get a thick milkshake up a thin straw. The resultant sound is obscene. Steve makes a noise like he's dying, hands finding his shoulders and digging in into his skin—no nails, not yet, but Bucky is content to wait, to save that for a day when he's got Steve flat on his back on the bed, legs wrapped around his waist, heels digging into his back, and the bed is banging against the wall and Steve wails his name and scratches his nails down his back—

Except such things can never happen.

Steve can only whisper, "So this is the kind of thing you've been doing with those dames," as quietly possible, press his chest against Bucky's face and curl the fingers of one hand into the hair at the nape of his neck. "No wonder they like you so much."

Bucky grins around the nub of flesh in his mouth, pulls away and whispers, "Haven't met gal with your particular set of plumbing, bud, but most of 'em definitely like their tits sucked." He runs the flat of his tongue against Steve's reddened nipple. Steve jerks, makes the prettiest noise. "Yours are definitely the sweetest, though." He doesn't actually know if what he says is true, because the Steve's taste is the only one he can ever remember having in his mouth, but he figures it must be true for that reason if nothing else.

"I don't have tits, jerk," Steve mutters. One of his hands scrabbles down into his own pubic hair and he touches the pads of his fingers to Bucky's knuckles.

Bucky says, "They're round and pink and they get hard when I suck on 'em, Steve. Don't know what else to call them but tits." He does, obviously, but  _tits_  rolls off the tongue much easier and he loves to get a rise out of Steve.

In response, Steve scoffs in the back of his throat, wraps his fingers loosely around Bucky's and bucks his hips up. Bucky watches it, the way his sharp hipbones move in an almost hypnotizing motion underneath his skin, the sweat that is shimmering just slightly in the minimal light. He bows his head, licks into the hollow of Steve's collarbone. Part of him still cannot believe that this is happening, wants to touch and taste and feel everything in case this is a dream, or—more likely—a massive lapse of judgment. Wants to catalogue Steve this way in case this is the only chance he'll get.

On his shoulder, Steve makes a pattern with two fingers, back-and-forth. It takes Bucky a moment to realize that Steve hand is trying to echo what Bucky's is doing, that his hand is moving in unconscious little circles in an attempt to direct Bucky's motions. Steve whispers, "F-faster, Buck, just—" and finds Bucky's lips and muffles his sounds against Bucky's mouth, fingers constricting around Bucky's, other hand almost frantic on Bucky's shoulder. Out of the side of his mouth, he whispers, "Yeah, that's it, mmm," and Bucky can't breathe. He gets one arm under Steve's ass, hitches him up and flips them to slam against the other arm of the couch, Steve under him now.

Steve breaks away to cry out as his shoulders hit the arm of the couch, head flying back. Bucky takes in the mess that has become of his usually well-combed locks and wedges his hips between Steve's spread legs. Steve cants his hips up into Bucky's hand, wraps his skinny legs around Bucky's waist. Bucky's arm is cramping up, nerves blasting their displeasure at his continued, aggressive movement, but he can't quite bring himself to care.

"C'mon, Stevie," Bucky hisses. "Come for me. Damn, you're gorgeous. Fuckin' come for me, baby, wanna see you come—"

Steve gasps, arches up, every inch of him tense. He takes in a loud, rattling breath that reverberates around the room in the way that no moan or groan ever could, the kind of breath that can't be mistaken for anything else, the kind of breath that makes Bucky throb in his pants because he knows Steve is coming, hard, before Steve even manages to gasp, "I'm coming," like Bucky imagines some people say, "I'm dying."

His eyes squeeze shut while his mouth opens wide in counterpoint, and the air leaves his lungs in a forced, hard sound almost like a sob. His body jerks, Bucky can feel the muscles in his legs tighten impossibly further. One hand reaches above his head to form a claw against the abused maroon upholstery. The other drags a line all the way down one shoulder blade, the pinpoint of Steve's chewed-up nails sharp even through Bucky's shirt. Wet warmth blooms between them, on Bucky's stomach and on Bucky's fingers.

Bucky doesn't think he's ever seen or heard anything more beautiful or painfully arousing. Even as Steve relaxes and slumps, boneless, against the arm of the couch and he pants hard, in-out-in-out, and his hand drops from over his head to resting on his forehead like a swoon. Even as Steve unlocks his ankles from around Bucky's waist and drops his heels to the cushions. Even as Bucky bows his head to leave a trail of soothing, sweet kisses under Steve's ear, long his throat and over his collarbone. Even as Steve's orgasm subsides, the image of Steve's face does not leave his mind.

Against the hollow of Steve's clavicle, wet with sweat and his own spit, Bucky whispers, "Alright?"

"Never been better," Steve replies, and Bucky believes it when he wriggles an arm between them and gets those long artist's fingers between them and squeezes Bucky through his pants. He says, "I want you to—" and gets both his hands between them, works open Bucky's belt. Just the clanking of the buckle coming undone is an unspeakable relief to Bucky's ears but before Steve can get his hand into his pants, Bucky takes his wrist.

"Wait," he murmurs, and then spends a moment gathering his facilities before wrapping his arms around Steve's waist and, for a third time, lifting him. This time he takes him all the way up, and Steve gives a noise that's half grumble and half laugh, as Bucky carries him over to the bed then drops him onto it without much ceremony.

He looks debauched, with his hair looking like a bird recently vacated it, his skin a shimmery red with sweat and sex flush, stomach smeared with the result of his recent climax. He looks at Bucky from under his lashes and opens his legs and Bucky thinks it might just be possible to die from arousal.

"Holy shit," Bucky rasps. "Don't look at me like that, Steve. Christ. If looks could kill."

Steve grins. What a sly punk.

"There's a tub of Vaseline in the nightstand drawer," Bucky murmurs. "Get it out."

Steve rolls onto his front and scrambles for the drawer of the nightstand, yanks it open and fishes around inside it. Bucky watches and yanks his belt out of its loops, throws it on the floor and unbuttons his pants. It provides some relief, but not as much as pulling himself out and stroking several times, slow and firm. He moans loud enough to let himself be heard, and Steve glances over his shoulder. Bucky hears his breath hitch.

"Relax," Bucky whispers, and gets one knee on the bed. "I'm not gonna fuck you—"

"I can take it," Steve says, because he's so  _fucking_  stubborn and Bucky should know that it would extend to even this. He's a spitfire, and even though there is a softness to his voice when he whispers, "I want you to feel good, too," Bucky can tell that he'll never hear the end of it if he doesn't nip this in the bud. Steve despises being seen as weak.

"Shh," Bucky whispers, and takes the Vaseline from Steve. "Didn't say I'd never fuck you, sugar. We're gonna have to work our way up to that. I only just got my hands on you; give me something to save for later." He hikes the other knee up onto the bed, plants them on either side of Steve's outspread calves and hooks his fingers into the fold of thigh and groin. Whispers his lips along Steve's spine and rumbles, "Get on your knees for me," against his skin.

Steve does so, legs stubbornly spread as though he thinks Bucky will change his mind if only he presents the goods well enough. Bucky nudges his thighs together.

"Squeeze those legs of yours real tight, Steve," Bucky whispers. "Real tight, now, and I'll feel real good." He scoops a finger through the Vaseline, cleaves his way between Steve's thighs and spreads it thick and warm. Steve lets out a quiet rattle of a gasp. Bucky says, "Lotta girls have you do it this way 'cause they're afraid of gettin' pregnant. Feels almost as good as the real thing if you do it right. I got a feel of those muscles you got on you just now, Steve. I know you can keep it nice and tight for me."

"God, Buck," Steve mumbles into the sheets. Bucky feels his muscles tighten.

"I've always been a leg man," Bucky says, almost conversationally. Spreads the rest of the Vaseline on his hand onto his length and presses his slick hand to Steve's hip. Thinks about the handprint that it'll leave, and smirks to himself.

"I'm probably a bit of a disappointment then, huh?" Steve says, ire in his voice.

Bucky looks up at him, at the way his head dips between his shoulders. Gets the head of his cock situated against the cleavage of Steve's thighs and pushes slowly in, mouths the swell of one shoulder blade. Presses his cheek there and mumbles, "I'm gonna tell you just what a fuckin' piece of art you are until you believe it, Steve Rogers. Even if it's all I ever do. If that's what God meant for me when he put me on this Earth, that's a worthwhile purpose for me."

"Buck—" Steve says, and then, " _hunh_ ," as Bucky gives a hard thrust that sends him shifting forward on the bed and then back, hair bobbing. The bed bangs against the wall, but it's an outside wall. Bucky muffles his groan in Steve's shoulder.

"You feel so damn good," Bucky whispers. Gives half a dozen more thrusts before he continues, "I think about this all the time. About gettin' you on your knees and fucking you into next week."

"Feels good, Buck," Steve says. Bucky sucks a bruise over his spine. Steve reaches a hand back and wraps his hand around the back of Bucky's, linking his fingers through Bucky's Vaseline-covered ones. "Feels so good. Makes me want the real thing." He grunts again a Bucky gives another, particularly ferocious thrust.

Through gritted teeth, Bucky says, "Love you, Stevie. Always have."

Steve says, "You too," and Bucky gives a thrust that seems to almost send the bed through the wall. "Shit, Bucky."

"Say it again," Bucky demands.

"I love you," Steve says, firm and in that deep voice of his and Bucky pants helplessly. The bed pounds against the wall in a steady, resonating  _clang_  as the wrought iron hits the wall, reminiscent of a clock chiming midnight. Steve grunts on every thrust, like he can't help it or Bucky is fucking the air out of him or he's just realized that making as much noise as possible is the best way to get Bucky off, because it  _is_ , and it's working so well that he's about to come faster and harder than he has probably since puberty.

"Fuck, Steve, I'm gonna come—"

"Do it, Buck. Come for me. Come inside me."

And even though part of Bucky knows that it's nonsense, that Steve is saying something specifically engineered to appeal to his lizard brain and make him go off like a fucking light, he doesn't care. The words are like a switch in his brain, like they're what he was waiting for, and then he thrusts himself as deep as he'll go and comes between Steve's legs. Everything whites out for a moment, then goes quiet as he slumps against Steve's back and waits for the world to reconstitute around him.

As soon as he can, Bucky pulls away and strips, falls onto his side on the bed, hooks an arm around Steve's waist and spoons against him. Lays there for a moment, noses at Steve's hair and whispers, "Just so you know, I can't remember ever coming harder." He's only somewhat disbelieving that the man below him, this man whom he's known his entire life, is responsible for the most intense orgasm of his life. Disbelieving, but somehow unsurprised.

"Mm," Steve mumbles. He locks his fingers around Bucky's. "I'm laying in your wet spot."

Of course that would be the first thing out of Steve's mouth. Most intense sexual encounter of Bucky's life and all Steve can think about three seconds later is the fucking wet spot on the fucking bed. He doesn't know why, because the entire situation is already too ridiculous, but Bucky laughs. Rolls onto his back and laughs until he's almost crying, moisture gathering at the corners of his eyes. Steve rolls over and doesn't laugh, but stares at him with a shimmer in his eyes and the gentle curve of a smirk on his face as he folds his arms on Bucky's chest, chin on his arms. Bucky grins and spreads his hand along the small of Steve's back. This was the last thing he was expecting when he walked in the door and saw Steve in his shirt an hour ago.

An hour ago.

Bucky's laughing calms, and he thinks about how much his life has changed in that hour. How loathe he would be to return to life as it was this afternoon. Thinks about how that's how it's going to have to be. Unless they're behind closed doors, he and Steve will be the same. Nothing will have changed. None of this will mean anything. It won't mean that Bucky is now free to walk around with his arm around Steve's waist. It won't mean that it'll be acceptable to be seen snuggling with Steve on the Ferris wheel at Coney Island. It won't mean that he can put a ring on Steve's finger and marry him in front of God and everyone.

"If you were a dame," Bucky whispers, "I'd put a ring on you and take you to the church tomorrow."

"And if I were a kite, you'd put a tail on me and take me to the park," Steve whispers. Strokes his hand through the damp, dark hair on Bucky's chest. Drops a kiss there, in the wake of his thumb. "Don't think about what ifs and could have beens, Buck. It'll make you sick."

"D'you think things'll ever be different?" Bucky mumbles, staring up in the dark, hand making a slow, meandering path through Steve's hair and down his back, then up and down again. "For people like us? D'you think it'll ever be okay for us to love each other?"

Steve sighs and Bucky thinks that's his reply until he slowly says, "Maybe. Things are always changing. Yeah." He elbows up, meets Bucky's eyes, blue on blue. "Yeah. Something's gotta give. It won't always be this way."

Bucky pushes his bangs back and kisses his forehead, then his lips. "Things'll never change fast enough. We'll be ninety before a coupla guys can be seen together like a guy and his girl." He pauses, tries to read Steve, eyes darting back and forth like he's reading a book. "You willing to break the law with me, Steve?"

Steve grins. "If what we just did wasn't breaking the law, pal, don't know what was." Slowly, his grin slides off his face and leaves just a shadow of a smile in its wake. "But you know I am, Buck. 'Til the end of the line, right?"

"Yeah," Bucky sighs, and adjusts Steve until they're laying pressed together shoulder-to-toe. "'Til the end of the line."

**Author's Note:**

> Sex scenes give me a world of fucking trouble that you would not even bELIEVE. I guess that was the point of this. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.  
> (There might be a 21-century epilogue to this. Maybe. Still thinking.)  
> Come cry with me on Tumblr at LavenderProse.


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